Dating with Business Cards

Pfizer's Chief Sales Girl

 

 

I was sitting in a Jake n Joes sports bar in Mansfield tonight with M. As we were talking, the place was filling up nicely with business types from the corporate park across the way. Happy Hour!


One such corporate lady sits down next to me, blond and in her early 50's. She pulls out what looks like an email and starts scribbling away on it. As M and I were discussing mid 90's music, I turn to her and tell her to “Put your work away, it's play time.” She responds that this was far too important to ignore and keep dotting and dashing on it. I then squint some more and realize it's her resume.

“Uh-oh, this one is out of work.” I tell myself.

But we talk anyway. She says she was a pharmaceutical saleswoman. Also she holds a teaching degree and is licensed by the State. I give another glance at her resume and it's filled with laurels, trophies and blue ribbons. I sink a little realizing this chick beats me silly on the accreditation list of “career.”

She tells me the sales action in pharmaceutical sucks. They are paying much, much less and tend to hire college cheerleader bimbettes who hold a “communications” degree. Poor thing I think to myself, you have to compete with playful little sex kittens who will charm the signature from a Doctor right onto an order form. It won't matter if she can't explain what targeted drug delivery is, as long as her young, toothy smile melts the Dr's heart...and he signs on the dotted line.

“So where ya from? She asks.

I say, “Rhode Island.”

“Oh, I thought you talked a bit funny.”

Funny. I guess so. You can drive 40 miles in any direction and the accent changes.

Meanwhile M is shooting me cynical smiles. Yeah, I know what he's doing, busting my balls.

Out in the car, M advises: “You ought to dye your hair again, it'll take that extra 15 years off you that you don't really own.”

Yeah, possibly. I'm thinking shoe polish BLACK.



Pinocchio

Think of something to write, anything...nope, coming up blank.


Hmm. How about the brief time I knew Joseph Mollicone. You remember him. He absconded with $18,000,000 worth of Heritage Loan's money and that brought down the entire credit union industry in RI. I met him because I used to work in one of his real estate holdings when I was an early 20 something. From outward appearances he seemed a nice guy and quite knowledgeable with money. He was flipping Providence office buildings before retail America was flipping homes.


And that's as far as I'll take this story. Feeling gypped? Led on? Sorry, but I type stream of consciousness here and this path leads to my first and thankfully my last introduction to the Atwells Ave crowd. They're major league racketeers and in comparison, I was on the tee-ball league. There is no way I'd play well with the big boys. I was just not talented enough and knew it.


Well, I can add that Mollicone dressed in total 80's preppie style and was polite.

 

 

*****



No one's completely honest. If you were, past 18, you'd probably find life a real devil of a time to work with. The friends I know who own businesses dabble in tax fraud via under reporting income. Then there were the one-time amateur pharmacologists who plied their trade in Slater Park and now sell trifling amounts to friends. Then there are the over sexed ones who occasionally cheat on their wives (and vice versa).


All small time misconduct. They know how far to push it, or rather, know their limits.


I've met some pretty honest people. By honest I mean really honest which seems to be damaging to them at times. Ever meet a Mormon and a I mean a real Provo, Utah type? They're transparent as a sheet of glass most are. It's something to see them speak up at an office meeting and in doing so, cut their standing down a few notches by speaking too honestly. Sure, you probably could trust them with your wallet and first born for a month, but as far as maintaining their political standing in the real world?


And we all guard our political standing, whether at work, at home or among friends...don't we?


I was put on the spot once on this question, rhetorically, at a staff meeting over twenty years ago.


Before the meeting began, we were chatting and I retold a story. I was walking along Armistice Blvd to get to the Quickie Mart. It must've been 1 AM or later. As I walked along, I see one of those then new fiberglass ladders Home Depot was selling. It was a good twenty footer too, leaning against a building. It was unattached, untied up and seemed quiet alone there.


“That's going to be long gone before morning...hell...YOU could be the one taking off with it.” I thought.


I never took it, but entertained some ideas ya know.


That's when the second in command of the facility pipes up, as she was eavesdropping.


“So, how honest are you, Ron?”   It was one of those cornering shots, like in tennis where they try to make you run to the baseline, hoping you won't get there in time. It was calculated.


Talk about ambushes.



“How honest am I?” This was followed by a knowing pregnant pause. But I can be fairly quick on my feet once I get my bearings back.


“Well, I'm as honest as a Rhode Islander needs to be.” I answer.


My brain is working fast and I completely made up the next statement...sort of.


“Yeah, as honest as the next Rhode Islander needs to be..." (This is true..now comes the curve ball LIE)


“...I got that phrase from Leonard van Dorn” (The LIE. He never told me at all). As I said that odd name, I shot a focused, staring and knowing look right into her eyes. I broke it off several seconds later.


Our second in command was a married women of several years, except when she was porking her other love interest, van Dorn, who was our sub-contracted psychologist who I got to know well later on. Their affair was a running joke at our job, as she was horrible at covering her tracks. It made for the usual office gossip.


That shut her up quick. As I turned away, I might have said to myself, “Yeah...Fuck you too.” under my breath.


People, when calm and safe, are generally honest. But if you threaten them, intending to ruin their life or make it uncomfortable, people will change quick and defend it in an instant. Why is anyone surprised by this? They shouldn't be. I don't care if the transgression you're being accused of is true or not, people will defend themselves with what weaponry and skill they possess at the moment.




You do this. I do this. You see it every day on WJAR when the defendant says, “I plead NOT guilty” at the arraignment. Hell, five year olds are taught this when caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Mark Twain: "I've Never Seen Anything Like it Since the Orphanage Burned Down."

Think the above cartoon is funny or does it make you wretch? To me, it's screamingly funny. This is dark, sick, black, sardonic humor. It's an acquired taste. In order to “get it,” you had to have experienced the absolute absurdity life can throw at you. Not just brushes with absurdity, I mean living it and being steeped well in it, like a cup of tea with it's bag still sitting in it, for thirty minutes.


My brother was an expert at it. I once posted a piece on his re-captioning of Dennis the Menace cartoons and some of the panels he re-did. I posted only the more gentler ones. I knew that some of them would have made nuns, cancer victims, the Womens Movement, LBGT and a host of other groups and other of life's martyrs raging mad. The greatest attack he managed was on the Bible, he rewrote part of that and I still have it. He was an Equal Opportunity ball buster and he attacked everyone no matter the affliction. Everything was up for grabs in his mind. Since everything always contained a certain amount of pure bullshit, he railed against it by turning it on it's head. Everything? Sure, look at middle class values and you can blow a month writing comedy on that alone. While in the hospital, he once joked to me that in his obituary, it should read: “He fought a coward's battle with Cystic Fibrosis.” It was his reaction to the happy-horseshit, reality-denying, positivism you find anywhere you go. We both laughed at that idea for an obit but there's no way the ProJo would publish it, nor would half his friends “get it.”


My brother was an idealist if you can understand that, given his dark humor. He used these jokes and gags to point out the stench of lies that people ascribe too or the silly things they uphold as HOLY and TRUE (When in actuality, the public display of these morals mask a disgusting selfishness). He never gave up the idea this world could be better, hence the way his humor attacked all that was bogus underneath it's “real” surface. It's also a way of enduring life's silliness, and also when it becomes not so silly, but I'll explain that later.


A few years ago, I brought a copy of that redone Dennis the Menace to my local bar and tossed it in front of an acquaintance. I took a stool a bit aways and watch his expression to see if he “got it” as he read. Nope, not in the least. He looked up at me and asked “Who's the sick fuck who would do this...is this you?”


I thought, “Nope, this one isn't a member of the Brotherhood. He can't get past the surface. He's never met absurdity.” I just removed it and quickly moved on. This kind of humor, in the wrong hands, is completely misunderstood by those not initiated.


When faced with the irrationality of life, when common sense solutions are ignored, tossed away in favor for the other person/institution/state/you name it's neurosis, you have to cope somehow when no other method works. That way of coping is to laugh at it. You can't fake this either, you will genuinely launch into a deep belly laugh if you have experienced it. It's truly funny. But like I said, you have to be cornered by the ridiculousness of it all in order transcend it and make it a comedy.


I'm a lover of this kind of humor because I understand it.

Click the pic to see where dark humor is BEST used.

It's Here.

Autumn is coming, in fits and starts, cleft by some persistent and heavy-handed hot days from August. August, loud and swaggering, chisels in on some September days, just to remind you of who he is. But bullies like August can't last forever.

I awoke too early, not by intention though. I guess I had enough sleep. That predawn sky I haven't seen in a while and that silverish blue was just starting on the horizon. I found it to be quite bright even if it was just a sliver. I'm up so I need a clean shirt and shorts. I had some on the dog run line outside where I drape clothing to dry. Time to venture out.

In that early morning darkness, you can get away with a lot. My hair's a total rat's nest, a spindly wicker basket jutting hay and straw. I'm dressed in my bachelor’s shorts, a pair of swim trunks that are chlorine burned, torn and out of fashion. Who's going to see at this hour? No one. Even if Mr Happy decides to fall out of the front, there will be no witnesses.

I discovered that autumn has arrived by the grass being covered in 49 degree dew. Of course I'm barefoot and as soon as I stepped out onto that grass my mind was astonished with a “HELLO!” There's nothing like unsuspected chilliness break open the day for you. At first, my pride had me walking in it, standing in it, tolerating it while I pulled the shirt from the cable. I then caved in and hop scotched my way back to the house via the slate flagstones I have there. At least they weren't covered in ice water.

In time I'll learn to tolerate the cold ground and go out in January barefoot, for a quick run to my car to retrieve my ever precious Coca Cola. But I ain't there yet.

A,B,C,D,E...Wait, I have to text somone.

“When I was a kid, we could never get away with that in school!” is what this may sound like. But in reality society has changed since then and education with it.


I was talking to a friend who is a teacher in the Pawtucket school system and I learned how different it is now. Apparently the threat of law suits, bogus (and not some bogus) accusations and the general level of maturity of some kids really makes it difficult to be a teacher today. Add to that the families they come from are smashed up and that sure doesn't make a teacher's job any easier when little Johnnie is brought to his first day at kindergarten already twisted.


When I was in school there was a definite separation of various kinds of kids. There was no mainstreaming of everyone. Inclusiveness did not mean we include everyone in the same building. The slow learners, the proto-criminals, the behavioral problems were never included in our classes. Sure, we had rambunctious boys who had to be corralled daily, but nothing dangerous. I remember ten kids total in my entire school career that were shunted off to a “special school” if they couldn't cut it in a regular classroom. One month they were with us and then POOF...they were gone one day and we forgot all about them by Friday.


Not today...


“Kyle, please put away your cell phone...Kyle...this is a classroom please...I need you to pay attention and that phone isn't helping so please put it back...”


“FUCK YOU MR COLLINS! YOU SUCK! YOU CAN'T TEACH!”


This was told to me by my friend who had to deal with kids who have no fear of authority because there is none to back the teacher up.


“How did you mange that kid during that? I had to ask.


“I had to get the teacher from the classroom next to me to “witness” everything. I got her, we went back to my classroom and I told Kyle to leave the room to go see the principal...If there had been any altercation, I have my witness.”


I was a bit surprised. “You need witnesses now?”


He said he wouldn't move on a kid like that without one.


I ask, “Have you been hit?”


“Yep, and the trick to that is to get out of the classroom as fast as you can, make your way to the admin room to dial 911...get the kid arrested. It's a game, you build a rap sheet on the kid, get him to go past that last line drawn in the sand and ship him to somewhere else.”


I rolled my eyes...


“Ron...it's way different now. When you were in school, mostly everyone's parents would be involved, or could be involved in the school if there was a problem. Also, back then teachers had some power, they could make your life suck if you misbehaved. Not today...I have to watch my ass on what I say, do or God Knows What.”


“How many 'special classes' did you have in your schools then?” He asked me.


“None that I remember.” I tell him.


He goes on...


“Yeah, back then, they removed the problem kids so the regular class could function. Do you know how many different programs we have now? We have classes for pregnant teens, violent kids, kids with severe ADD, borderline mental retardation. Did you know we have a program for bullied kids? If they are very low on the high school social order, they have a place they can go to be safe from the abuse now.”


I had to ask. “Do you like your work?” To me, it seemed such a drag. He said he did but worried about the future. The pensions are no longer as good as they once were. The stability of a teacher's job is up in the air due to the sick town and city's tax base. The constant worry about being accused of this or that bugged him too.


I had told him I knew about one high school teacher (from a Pawtucket DeLasallian school: hint-hint) that was porking the crap out of one of female students. The joke was she wanted it. There was no legal problem because he was smart enough to wait til she had turned eighteen when she was a senior. Sure, it looked like hell and it was a running joke on the gossip circuit, but it didn't really upset many people.


He rolls his eyes. “ Ron, had I a pupil as a girlfriend and who was of legal age...I'd be run out of town on a rail anyways. You've got to watch what you say or do. Jesus, you have to watch what you look at because if someone sees you looking.... Hey, sure...some of these girls are knockouts at eighteen and I do look, but I can't dare..or even dream of doing anything. Even if I look it's a quick glance.”


I say it sounds like the kids now have the upper hand, the pendulum has swung the other way compared to when I was in school.


“Yep, I'm sure there was a time when teachers were allowed to do what the hell they wanted to kids waaay back then, and abused the crap out of it. But swinging the whole way, in the other direction, wasn't an answer either.” He tells me.


It seems to me, being a teacher and retiring ten years ago, was the high water mark.

Like Father Like Son...in Some Ways.

Give me your Twinkies! 
 

Click on pic to see the clip I'm going to talk about a bit today. Or get pissed because YouTube's buffering sucks and you have to wait to see it.

 

 

 

This isn't the best way to describe how I get, but everything up till the “until you are dead” line in the clip can be true at times. I'm not bragging that I'm like the Terminator, but the obsessiveness and tenacity I do own. I don't turn this “on” in me by choice. I swear it's a circuit breaker that flips when I reach a point of frustration that's preventing me from reaching a goal. The jist is that it happens on it's own. I don't go the breaker box to turn it on.

Today, I finally got that mount and FM antenna secured to the roof and operating. I can pull in Nantucket once more. I can listen to music with some pretty decent fidelity from stations out of New Hampshire. I have choice of a many stations that don't compress and cut the bandwidth like you have on a computer. In order to jam that much information down the fiber optic line and servers, they purposely cut the highs and lows of a song. You get the boring middle. This, ironically enough, is called “lossless” or “lossy compressed” music. The bastards!

Sure, I can listen to some music station out of Stuttgart Germany and wire that from my computer to the stereo and it'll sound like crap sonically. If I want well transmitted crap I'll listen to WPRO-FM via the airwaves.

This explains my love of uncompressed music. It should, I built a pair of speakers that can go from 20hz to 20,000hz. Not that I can hear 20,000hz anymore.  But I wanted a full range setup and I built one.

Now back to my obsession.

While I was working on the roof, I was reminded of a time when I felt the same way. I was 15 and struggling with a carburetor from a car I wanted to get running. I knew precious little about them but I did know just enough to make them work. My job that day was cleaning the gasoline varnish that can build up in the jets and such. Carburetors are pretty intricate things. You have to place all parts back together correctly, with tensioned springs waiting to go SPROING across the living room and then roll under the couch. I was having a devil of a time trying to rebuild it. I kept trying again and again. I just wouldn't give up. Then something I was doing must've brought the attention of my Mom. I'm not sure what? Muttering under my breath? Swearing under my breath? I don't know. But she had come into the living room and suggested I stop working on the carburetor and hand it over to someone who knew how to fix one. She probably thought I was drowning and making myself miserable. I looked up at her with probably a dead-panned face and said in a monotone voice:

“I'll.fix.this.and.make.it.work.”

My circuit breaker was on and that single-minded, tenacious, do-or-die-trying personality had taken over.

I got that damn thing working after three hours of constant trial and error. I won.

On the roof this afternoon, all four and one half hours. I kept running into delays, problems I never thought of and the usual tools scattering down my roof. As the minutes ticked by, with my hands bleeding from about a half dozen small cuts from the stainless steel ribbon, with my ankles in pain from being bent in such an awkward angle on the roof and from climbing up and down the ladder, up and down the roof...the circuit breaker had flipped on it's own.

Nothing else mattered. Not my sweaty face, not my filthy clothing that got worse from the continued work. Not the blood nor pain in my ankles. Not the phone which I ignored. Not the dying light of day.

This was going to be done. I will achieve this. Come Hell of High Water. If you find yourself in my way, kindly move aside...now.


I won. I got the antenna up and running.

Now, I'm sitting here freshly showered, tired and listening to my wonderful choice in music.

*****

Where did I get this circuit breaker? I know where. My Dad. If you wanted to see someone who was relentless and stubborn about climbing the corporate ladder and once up there, use the same drive to gain new accounts for the bank, it was him.

Nothing else mattered except succeeding at a goal he aimed for. He (and oddly enough I) can burn up every path, use every tool and chase down every lead till we hit the goal. If it couldn't be achieved, it meant it was impossible to gain because he (and I) felt that we were steadfastly sure we worked up every angle. If no path could be found to the goal. It doesn't exist. We know, we investigated every way.

Hell, and I thought I was very different from my Dad. I guess not. Well...I'm not blowing my life on becoming the new CEO of Raytheon. I have to be in love with a goal to blow that much energy on it. I'm not so much in love with the laurels one gets from making it in finance.

I love the music. And I'm not surprised at all that I spent so many calories on that. Again, I had better be in love with a goal, otherwise the effort will be decent enough but not balls to the wall.



Temper, Brash Guy Ideas and Knowing When to Quit

Ya know, I'm trying to install a chimney strap to hold up the mast of my FM antenna that was pretty much destroyed in the February blizzard. Not easy work considering the stainless steel strapping isn't too forgiving when you try to manage it around the four corners of a chimney. You want to balance it just right but at the same time it's being pulled down by the seven pound weight of the mast connector. Everything has to be loosely in place before I can tighten it up.


Do this while trying not to fall off a 45 degree angle roof. 


I was smart this time, I tied myself off so in case I did start going, I wouldn't go splat on the ground. The rope would save my ass. Even so, you are highly aware, second to second, of your body position. That's nice as I'm trying to split my focus both ways, on not dying and trying to manage this contraption onto the chimney. When I work, I focus totally on what I'm doing, otherwise how else are you going to do it right? Things, people, chance events that distract me are great for never nailing that goal perfectly. They piss me off. One thing at a time please! I'm not a woman who can multi-task.


(I'm a total shithead....I just figured out a way to do this while writing this. Assemble the god damn thing on the ground then loop it over the chimney, then tighten.)


So what. I'm going on with this story.


As I was grappling the first section into place, I feel my rope being slapped against the house and I'm thinking, ”Jesus, why is it coming loose?!” It wasn't. It was B from down the street fucking with my head. He asks what I'm doing and comes up the ladder to help.


“Whoa B! This roof is very steep...watch it...slowly come up.” I tell him.


As I was telling him to be careful, I wondered how much my insurance would cover if he fell. Then the phone numbers of his family to alert them he's a pile of broken bones at Memorial Hospital.


He comes up, gives me a hand and we get the first section tightened down. He has to leave as he was on his way to work anyway. Ah well, 50% done in under 30 minutes is a blessing.


I start on the second section and while I'm trying to get it loosely in place and position, one of the nuts comes loose and the mast connector pops off. That nut HAD to be loose in the first place in order for everything to work. Well, the connector falls and skids down the roof. I hear it go THWACK against my gutter and disappear from my sight as it falls to the ground.


“What.The.Fuck.” I think.


Now, I have to gently get down the roof, unhook myself from my safety rope and get to the ground and find the damn thing.


Here's some fun. Try locating a bronzed piece of metal in a field of green, my grass. Dull yellow on green is a wonderful color combination to see in contrast. The point being...you can't!


I pace back and forth, looking down, hoping to either see or step on this piece. I can't find the damn thing. I keep looking as my temper starts to rise.


“All these delays for a fucking antenna? Is this even worth it?” The other part of me chimes in with a “YES! You've always wanted this...you'd nearly die for it...music is everything!”


I get to the point where I say this to myself. “I'll find this damn thing. I'll mow the lawn here and the mower will ride over it eventually and say to me “CLUNK!!!! “ I'm not kidding, I thought of that as an idea. See how male temper can generate useful but dangerous ideas? It's like rolling the dice on a last chance attempt. You do not care anymore and you're betting the house on Black 13.


I find the damn thing. It was about 40 feet from the house. Nice of it to hit the ground, bounce and roll as fast as it could behind the garbage cans. That took more time...more delays...more distractions.


That's it. I quit for the day. My palms are slightly burnt from the sun heated shingles of the roof. My temper isn't generating great ideas and knowing myself, I had better ease off before I do something rash.

 

Fuck this thing!